


Words Cannot Describe

by stardropdream (orphan_account)



Series: Words Cannot Describe [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 19:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>America's taking a bath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words Cannot Describe

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ January 1, 2010.

  
“America, you—” England began, lips pursed in annoyance as he opened the door.  
  
And then he realized that America was in her bathtub.  
  
Naked.  
  
Sputtering in a gentlemanly manner, he quickly ducked behind the door, preparing for her shriek—thought it never came—and blushing redder than a beet.  
  
“T-this is—” he tried, with as much composure as he could muster, to say to her. He tried to stutter out an apology and quickly shut the door but he heard the water churn as she stood up. He heard her wet footsteps, the rustle of a towel, and then there she was, peeking around the other side of the door, eyebrows raised and looking rather amused.  
  
“Hey, England. Glad to see you still know how to knock,” she said with a small chuckle.  
  
He stuttered again, sputtered really, still bright faced and cleared his throat a few times before he could answer.  
  
“I didn’t know you would be bathing—and you’re the one who didn’t lock your door.”  
  
“What else would I be doing in a bathroom? Honestly, England.”  
  
“Last time you made me wait for you for twenty minutes and I thought you were taking a bath but it turns out you were just trying to smoke and clip your toenails at the same time,” England shot back and managed to sound dry and annoyed despite the overwhelming embarrassment.  
  
“Ha ha, oh I remember that,” she said, cheerily. “Well, you’re a bit late. That was the case twenty minutes ago, and then I felt like bathing.”  
  
He gave her a sidelong glance.  
  
She grinned at him. “Come in, old man.”  
  
“I most certainly—”  
  
“It’ll be nice to have company, come _on_ ,” she said and grabbed his wrist, tugging him inside. Stronger than him now, something he still had trouble getting used to, he let her tug him, only tripping over his feet momentarily.  
  
He sat himself down at the chair in front of her mirror, frowning and glaring at his reflection, pointedly not watching America unwrap the towel from around herself and sink into the water. (A gentleman would most certainly not watch the curve of her back, the slide of her legs, no. Not at all.)  
  
He occupied himself with organizing the makeup on her vanity. He had no idea what half of the things were, but damn it if it wasn’t going to be organized. Throwing it about haphazardly couldn’t be healthy for efficient preparation in the morning.  
  
He heard her huff and knew she was watching him—he could feel her bright blue eyes on him. “England, what are you doing?”  
  
“Distracting myself,” England said.  
  
“There are bubbles in the bath, relax,” she teased. He glanced over at her and sure enough, everything vital was covered by a towering wall of white bubbles. She smiled over at him, and his eyes drifted down to the swell of her breasts for half a moment before he forced himself to look back at her face, reminding himself to buck up and get a hold of himself.  
  
America lifted herself a bit, enough that he saw more of her chest but nothing that could send him into another sputtering mess. She lifted her hands, pulling her fingers through her hair so that water droplets dripped down her face and over the ridge of her nose. She smiled, a bit coyly, at him as she patted and fluffed up her hair a bit before dropping her hands back into the water.  
  
She lifted her hands up once again, however, cupping bubbles and blowing them in his general direction. They popped or flopped to the ground before they reached him. He rested his elbow on the vanity, cupping his cheek with a hand and leaning heavily against it, observing her in a way he hoped wouldn’t be too uncomfortable or demonstrate how visibly uncomfortable he was.  
  
America, as always, was oblivious to England’s discomfort and the way he was watching her. She hummed to herself, soaping up her arms with the bar of soap on the corner of her bathtub, and grinned over at him.  
  
“Thanks for keeping me company,” she said.  
  
“I don’t understand why you want me to.”  
  
“It’s boring, sitting in a room by yourself with no one to talk to.”  
  
“You are the type that needs to talk all the time,” he agreed with a shrug and a sigh.  
  
“And I know you’re the type of person where all the blood would rush to your face and not down south,” she said cheerily, laughing when England’s face turned bright red again.  
  
“You are such an insufferable brat sometimes,” he muttered, and crossed his legs while looking away.  
  
“You always say that.”  
  
“And it somehow never stops being relevant, so there you are.”  
  
She patted her hands along the water, making small slapping sounds before sculpting the bubbles up into a pattern she deemed superior to simply lying flat along the water. He watched her work with thinly veiled amusement and the barest hint of a smile across his lips. She, of course, did not notice.  
  
“Hey,” she said after a long pause. She looked up at him and their eyes locked, hers shining and laughing. “Come take a bath with me.”  
  
There was a beat of silence, and then England nearly fell over in his haste to sit up straight, and cross his legs more. “I _beg_ your pardon.”  
  
She blinked at him. “Come on, England.”  
  
“Are you high?” he asked, more rhetorically than anything else.  
  
America thought this over a moment before shrugging. “Probably.”  
  
He sputtered.  
  
She did not back down. “Come on, England. It’ll be nice. The bathtub’s big enough, yeah?”  
  
“Be that as it may,” he said, tensely, “I am not bathing with you, America. I simply must draw the line at that.”  
  
“How come?”  
  
“Because it’s not proper.”  
  
“Oh screw being proper,” she shot back with another shrug, leaning against the edge of the bathtub and crossing her arms over the rim (much to England’s relief, as this hid her sizeable chest from view). “Come on,” she beckoned. “Undress.”  
  
“I will not,” he snapped.  
  
“England, when a beautiful woman says you should get in the bath with her, it’s rude of a gentleman to say no.”  
  
He closed his eyes and tried very, very desperately to contain himself.  
  
She puffed up. “Fine then, don’t join me. See what I care.”  
  
His eyebrow twitched. “Reverse psychology won’t work on me, America, I’m afraid. I am not you.”  
  
She huffed up again, her lips squeezing themselves into a small pout that he tried, vainly and desperately, to ignore.  
  
“And why do you want me to take a bath with you, anyway?” he asked, at last.  
  
“Because I like you,” she said.  
  
He was taken aback by her bluntness, waiting for her to spout out some kind of joke or to laugh at his expression and kick him out back into her house to wait for her. But none of those things happened. Instead, she stared at him inquisitively, blue eyes bright and earnest and staring straight at him. He tried very hard to look away and found that he could not.  
  
“… Come again?”  
  
“I like you,” she said again, without wavering.  
  
He cleared his throat. “This seems rather abrupt, you’ll forgive me for being skeptical.”  
  
“Meh,” she said with a shrug. “I probably am high, huh? But I mean it.” She stared at him. “I always mean what I say, England.”  
  
“Is that so?” he asked softly, and then shook his head.  
  
“Yes,” she said and grinned. “Now get in here with me.”  
  
“Was this all just a clever set up to get me naked?” he asked and suspected that might have been an attempt at a joke. She seemed to find it funny, though, because she laughed. And he realized, dimly, as he looked at her, that her cheeks were pink too.  
  
“Possibly,” she joked, laughing. Then she shook her head. “But seriously. It wasn’t a setup, I promise. I’m just… I don’t know. I don’t like keeping secrets.”  
  
“Truly,” England muttered, rubbing the back of his neck absently.  
  
“So.”  
  
“So, what?”  
  
“So what do you say?” she asked. “Do you like me, too?”  
  
“… I suppose I’m fond of you,” he decided with the smallest of balks. “But shouldn’t you have realized that already?”  
  
She shrugged.  
  
“No, of course not,” he muttered. “Why would you notice?”  
  
She shrugged again, and her smile softened.  
  
“So, you going to join me?”  
  
He stepped over towards her. She tipped her head back to look up at him. Her eyes sparkled.  
  
“Or are you going to kiss me instead?”  
  
He sputtered. “What makes you think that I’m—”  
  
“I want you to,” she cut him off, and shifted, sitting up a bit straighter, peering up at him.  
  
“This is an undignified place to have a first kiss.”  
  
“Shall I stand up, then?”  
  
“No, that’ll do,” England said quickly and then leaned down to kiss her.  
  
She giggled against his lips, and he could feel the curve of her smile against his mouth. He slanted over her, pressing an open mouth kiss to her lips and reaching out a hand to touch her cheek lightly, felt water and bubbles and her skin under his fingertips. She seemed to hum beneath him, arching up to meet him and he felt warmth spread over his face and in his chest. He couldn’t help but smile too.  
  
He pulled away, and cleared his throat.  
  
“Right, then. Turn around.”  
  
She lit up and did as he said, rotating away from him and scooting away to the other side of the bath, humming to herself. He stared at her back for a moment before fumbling his fingers to grasp at his buttons and undress himself.  
  
“I cannot believe I’m doing this,” he muttered to himself.  
  
She didn’t say anything, perhaps worried she’d scare him away. He was thankful for that, unsure whether he’d be able to handle her teasing. He refused to think about this situation, to assess why, exactly, he was doing something so stupid and foolish and vulnerable.  
  
He folded his clothing up and placed them on the stool he’d been sitting on before, before hurrying back to the bathtub’s edge and sinking slowly into the water. He hissed a bit as his cold feet connected with the warm water, but he sank in to the water.  
  
His foot bumped against her rear end and he sputtered a bit before quickly shifting his body away, looking off to the side and grumbling to himself. The water shifted around them, lapping against the sides and over her soft skin.  
  
She glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes soft. “Safe to look, Captain?”  
  
“Usually you wait for the answer before looking,” England barked, but nodded after a pause. “Clearly it’s safe.”  
  
She turned around fully after that, smiling and leaning forward, inspecting his face.  
  
“It’s not too hot for you, is it?”  
  
“Huh?” he asked, intelligently.  
  
“The water.”  
  
“Oh.” He paused. “It’s fine.”  
  
He slanted his eyes away and felt his face burn red under her scrutiny.  
  
And then she scooted closer to him. He tried to backtrack but found he was trapped against the edge of the tub. She scooted in closer, smiling and watching him like a hawk.  
  
“W-what?” he asked, feeling uncomfortable.  
  
“Nothing,” she said, and smiled widely. “I’m glad you’re here.”  
  
“Yes, well.”  
  
“That’s all you have to say?” she asked and smoothed her way closer. He watched her in turn, gulping down air as patches of her skin peeked out from the water, or appeared, submerged underwater and peeking through the small holes of disappearing bubble bath.  
  
“… What else am I meant to say?”  
  
“I don’t know, think of something,” she urged.  
  
He stared at her for a long moment, feeling his throat constrict at their proximity and the fact that they were both very _naked_ and she was right there smiling at him and laughing at him and looking just as beautiful as she always did. Though perhaps a bit smug. England frowned at her, watched the way her hands drifted along the surface of the water, shepherding the bubbles to cover over his lap, perhaps for the sake of his own modesty. He was too distressed at her hands being that close to think of much of anything else.  
  
So he focused elsewhere.  
  
“You have freckles,” he said at last, his voice almost low enough to be a whisper.  
  
Her eyebrows lifted a bit in momentary surprised before she scrunched up her nose, pursing her lips in thought a moment before squirming a bit closer to him—much to his dismay—and moving so close so that he could feel her breath ghosting against his lips.  
  
“So?”  
  
“So,” he muttered. He looked away. “It’s cute.”  
  
She grinned. “See, was that so hard?”  
  
“Hrm,” he said, intelligently.  
  
She laughed, softly. She shifted closer to England, lifting a hand to touch his cheek. He nearly swatted it away out of reflex—he was so used to fighting with her in meetings, wanting to throttle her and trying to bat some sense into her—having her touch him now was too intimate, given their proximity and location. He closed his eyes and tried to remember to breathe.  
  
America pulled back then, shifted around so that she was sitting in front of him, leaning against his chest, her head resting beneath his chin, her ear pressed to his chest. He swallowed thickly, started a bit in shock. She collected his hands and placed them nonchalantly on her stomach, possibly because she wasn’t sure where else to put them.  
  
England couldn’t squirm away with her pressing back against him like that. “A-America…” he warned. “What are…?”  
  
“Is this not okay?” she asked. She tilted her head back to look up at him, blue eyes wide and bright and inquisitive.  
  
He blushed and looked away. He could feel her warm skin beneath his hands. “It’s fine. I suppose. Completely improper.”  
  
“Oh, whatever,” she snorted.  
  
“How exactly do I end up in situations like this with you?”  
  
“Talent, I think,” she said easily without missing a beat.  
  
He sighed.  
  
She lifted up one of his hands and kissed the palm. “Yep. You like me a lot.”  
  
“Oh, shut up.”


End file.
